new Tasmanian oak, to match the existing oak,’ bare; a square of original, miraculouslypreserved Scott says. wallpaper (which is actually newspaper) still adorns ‘Where we had weatherboards that needed a bedroom wall; an exposed door jamb reveals the replacement, we had new boards milled on the old joinery methods. same profile as the existing ones at a local sawmill. Scott says that while they ‘meddled’ very ‘We removed 70 per cent of the brickwork and little with the original construction, modern-day cleaned it up and the re-laid it, using the same necessities such as insulation and electrical wiring technique bricklayers used back in those days and were incorporated. the same sand and cement mortar, no plasticisers. ‘We didn’t want to impose anything over the top ‘The owner was fascinated by the provenance of of [the original structure] in a way that you can see the bricks, which were locally made on the island. it’s been interfered with. But there is a disguised So he didn’t want to cover that back up.’ Instead, overlay in there of modern building compliance.’ the walls in the kitchen are left unlined; the aesthetic Bridging the divide between the bedroom of the space is defined by their reddish hue and and kitchen areas is the new living space; an charmingly uneven construction. unapologetically contemporary structure clad in These little windows into the past are everywhere: spotted gum and capped by a dramatic, angled sections of timber wall panelling are scrubbed roofline that sweeps up and away from the veranda. THE LIVING ROOM INSERTION WAS CONSTRUCTED ALMOST ENTIRELY FROM TASMANIAN OAK extensive water views from living room 34 HOUSING NOVEMBER 2018 PROJECTS